Lost In You
by Scarlet has Fantasy Issues
Summary: Where do you turn when your best friend's father is the person your blood destined you to be with? VeelaOC/Severus Snape...Rated for future chapters...


**A/N: Hi guys! It's me again; back with another story for the HP fandom. This story has nothing to do with "Those Who Dance Within the Flame" and doesn't follow the actual books completely. Dumbledore is dead, but Snape isn't. Other things might be missing or different, but creative license dictates what happens. **

**I borrowed the idea of some key aspects to the tale from a lovely author on this site, who kindly agreed to let me use it. Thank you for that, my friend!**

**And with all that done, here's the first chapter…**

**OOOOOOOOO**

"Miss Raven, Miss Marina, this is something that should have been brought to my attention the moment you found out," Professor McGonagall said, her lips pressed in a thin, disapproving line as she looked at the two teenage girls. "Not when you find that you have acquired a new taste that puts every one of your female Housemates in danger."

"For the record, Professor," the girl with jet black hair said, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder. "We didn't think it would get this bad. And Avonlea didn't know that her bloodlust would be increased when she got pissed." Her smile turned wry. "It's not like her mother was very open with answers about what will happen now that she's getting closer to being a real adult…"

Avonlea wiped a cloth against her lips and stared at the spattering of blood that stained it. Her blue eyes turned up towards her friend, who was defending her. "Carissa…Mom did say that there would be vampire tendencies…" she whispered.

"Yeah, a little too late," Carissa said, squeezing the girl's shoulder before looking back at McGonagall. "Please Professor; don't kick Lea out of the school. She didn't really mean to attack those girls. I would have, but not her."

"Miss Marina, your charms may work on students your age and younger, but not in this office." The older witch rose to her feet. "As we cannot know if Miss Raven will succumb to attacking other students, we must do something about it. And no, it will not involve her being removed from the school. She will be removed from the Slytherin dormitories and be placed in another part of the castle, to prevent anything like this from happening again. And it will _not_ happen again, do you understand Miss Raven?"

Avonlea nodded, turning her mother's letter over and over in her hands. "Yes Professor…"

"Good. Now, the girls you attacked remember nothing of this incident," McGonagall said, gesturing for Avonlea to rise from her seat and for the two girls to follow her. "And this is one secret that the school will not have the privilege of knowing. No matter how much your Veela heritage shows through your appearance, no one knows that the price you must pay to stop yourself from becoming a vampire. It will stay this way, but you must find your mate soon. You have a limited amount of time left to find him."

The blonde remained silent, sending a nervous glance in the direction of her friend as they followed McGonagall towards the entrance of the headmaster's office. Carissa's hand found hers and squeezed it, trying for strength through osmosis. McGonagall turned when they were just outside her office and frowned.

"Miss Raven, do you have any idea who your mate may be?" McGonagall asked, staring Avonlea dead in the eye. "Any ideas at all?"

_Thank God I was taught Occlumency_, Avonlea thought, keeping her face from revealing anything. "No Professor. I don't know who it could be."

Carissa gave her a look behind McGonagall's back, but kept silent. Appearing to be satisfied with the girl's answer, the headmistress turned and said a name under her breath. With a soft pop, a House Elf appeared and bowed his head at the three women. McGonagall told the House Elf where to take the girls and to bring their things with them when they did. She turned her steely gaze on the two girls once the directions were done and acknowledged.

"You are to let no one you do not fully trust into your new lodgings," the headmistress ordered. "I can only do so much to keep your secret a secret and if you act out again, there is very little I can do for you. I will not be erasing memories again, so be careful and keep your temper." Her eyes softened a little and she placed a hand on Avonlea's shoulder in an almost motherly fashion. "We will get you through this _before _you become a vampire…"

The blonde nodded and gave a half-hearted smile. McGonagall handed Carissa a small piece of parchment and shot one last warning look before turning and retreating back into her office. Carissa gave Avonlea an odd look and opened her mouth to say something.

"Young Mistresses," the House Elf said, bowing low. "Please follow me."

Avonlea bowed her head and let Carissa pull her along after her. Neither of the girls acknowledged any of the students that they moved past. It wouldn't have mattered if they played nice; being Slytherin had labeled them as untrustworthy. Even after the Wizard War had passed and some Slytherins had been seen as good people, there were still heavy feelings of hate shown towards the house of Purebloods. And Carissa, being found out to be the only daughter of Severus Snape – a small hero and enemy blend – was often at the brunt of the hate.

The two girls had been friends for most of their lives, growing up in the same house that contained dozens of women. Their mothers were prostitutes – both were pureblood but only one serviced all wizards – and neither girl were keen to follow in their mother's footsteps so they studied hard. Carissa had a knack for Potions which saved her friend's ass and helped her build a business of selling Love Potions. Avonlea had a knack for spell casting and magical creature studies – which helped Carissa out of several sticky situations.

Avonlea gently pulled her arm away from her friend as they followed the House Elf to a tower that she didn't know had any secret rooms. The little creature turned and gestured at the painting of a very handsome wizard, silently bidding them to say the password. Carissa unfolded the scrap of parchment and glanced down at the words scribbled on it. A snort of laughter came from her lean body and she showed it to Avonlea.

"_Dragon Bogeys_?" Avonlea whispered, an eyebrow arching up in confusion. "Seriously?"

"No one will say that, that's for sure," Carissa said, looking up at the painting of the wizard. "Dragon Bogeys, good sir."

The wizard cracked a smile and swept his hat off in a low bow. "Indeed," he said and the painting swung open to reveal a passageway. "Have a lovely evening, ladies."

Carissa reached back and pulled Avonlea through the hole in the wall, yanking her into a lovely common room, rather like the one that they had left in the dungeons. A warm fire was already roaring in the fireplace with two overstuffed chairs placed on the carpet in front of it. Two sets of stairs rose at the back of the room, leading off to separate rooms Avonlea guessed. There was another door of to the side and Carissa made a beeline for it, sticking her head just inside the door and a huge smile crossed her face.

"Lea, come look!" she ordered, motioning her friend forward. "We get our own bathroom and it is awesome!"

Avonlea shook her head and turned to look at the House Elf as he wrung his hands together. "Young Mistresses is the room to your liking?" he asked, his large eyes darting from Avonlea to Carissa and back to Avonlea.

"It'll be even better when I invite Katia and Cassius over for a little fun," Carissa muttered, more to herself than to anyone else.

"Yes, sir," Avonlea said, smiling down at the House Elf. "Thank you."

The House Elf bowed low again and vanished with a small pop. Avonlea brushed back her blonde hair and sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs, tapping her fingers against her knees. Carissa let the bathroom door close and glided over to her friend, folding her arms as she regarded the blonde with all-knowing black eyes.

"You lied to her," Carissa said after a few moments. "And she didn't know it, which is a big deal for McGonagall, but still…Lea, why didn't you tell her that you know who your mate is?"

"Because I don't _know_," Avonlea muttered, not looking at her friend. "I have a _feeling_ that the guy may be my mate, but that's it. He obviously doesn't have the same feeling because he looks at me like I'm a bug."

"He looks at everyone like they're a bug," Carissa pointed out before stabbing her finger at her own chest. "Even me… That's just how he is. And I can always see if there's something hiding in his -"

"No!" Avonlea protested, shaking her head furiously. "You can't tell him or let anyone know about it. I don't want to be the laughing stock of the castle if it turns out that he's not the one that can stop the vampirism from taking over. It's already bad enough that people go out of their way to torture me. Why should I give them more fodder when I'm not completely sure?"

Carissa leaned against the arm of the chair and sighed. "It's not like we have a lot of time left, Lea. You only have until your next birthday – three months, two weeks, and three days – to find the guy and mate or get turned into a full-fledged vampire." The daughter of Snape rubbed her arm where a soft flush of pink tinted the too pale flesh. "And I can only offer so much blood before you get really hungry and drain me."

"I'm not…I'm not going to drain you. I just…I need to learn more about the Veela race, unless you know something more about them than I do?"

"I only know what your mother wrote in that letter. And that wasn't very helpful or much of a letter." Carissa shrugged her shoulders. "We'll have to do some research on our own before you get bad and maybe Dad can help us? We could ask him." Avonlea shot her friend a dirty look. "All right, _I_ can ask him about the books we could use to learn more about Veela."

Avonlea sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, tugging gently at the roots. "This…this is a complete nightmare. And all I want to do is wake up from it and find that the school year is over and that a really hot wizard has proposed to me."

"Pssht! A really hot wizard? Sorry Lea, but Cassius is mine. Just like Katia. You're gonna have to find someone else," Carissa said with a small grin. "And you know that if you had your way, you'd just read your life away in a house in the middle of nowhere, where no one would bother you or make you talk."

"The ideal life for me…"

"And that's scarily pathetic." The dark haired girl glanced at the fire. "When we said that we wouldn't become our mothers, I didn't think you'd be who you are now. You may think that people pick on you because you're the daughter of a pureblood prostitute, but that's not true. They pick on you because you don't fight back. You take their words into you and retreat farther into yourself…An easy target." She pointed at the blood staining the collar of Avonlea's shirt. "Lea, building up all that anger results in that and if the vampiric part of you gets stronger, you'll need to find other ways to get that anger out. You could like…punch someone in the face or curse them. We are witches after all. Magic can be used against other witches."

"Not outside of class."

"It's only against the rules if you get caught. Punching also works outside of class. It always works for me."

"You mean, Snape gets you out of the trouble when you start Muggle-type fights…Not all of us have that luxury, Rissa."

"Eh, they do when they're my friends. Most of the time anyway…Depends on Dad's mood and how generous he's feeling." The raven haired girl turned and glanced at the door. "Do you want to go to the library and see if there is anything helpful in the dusty old records? Like how to tell who the mate of a Veela really is?"

"Not tonight. It's late and I don't want to test Snape's generosity on this evening…Tomorrow, after dinner we can look."

"Okay. I'm going to go get Cassius and Katia, to break in the new bed you know. Aren't you glad that we have separate rooms now?"

Avonlea waved her friend off, hiding a smile behind a carefully placed hand. Once the door closed behind Carissa, the smile fell away. The blonde looked back at the fire and swiped her tongue across her bottom lip. The sharp taste of blood clung to her – blood that wasn't hers or Carissa's for once – causing the girl to shiver. Her eyes closed and she remembered the smell of the man she _felt_ she was destined to be with by her breeding.

Smoke, old parchment, the smell of the coming rain…All of it was him and so much more, but it didn't make any sense.

_How can it be him? Wouldn't I have recognized it sooner? Maybe my senses are tricking me…Maybe I was wrong? Or picking up someone else's scent, so similar to his? This can't be. Not like this, ever._

Avonlea's blue eyes danced with the reflected fire light and she hugged her knees to her chest. She had no idea how she could tell anyone what she felt. Yes, Carissa was her best friend and that was the problem. How could she maintain her friendly – almost sisterly – relationship with her best friend when she was getting all the signs that Carissa's father was her destined mate? How could she be falling for Severus Snape?

**OOOOOOOOO**

**A/N: Just a small taste, I guess. I don't have it in my mind to let this story be as long as "Those…" because longer fics like that really aren't my thing. I also have many other stories to be working on and I should mention that my dominant wrist is a bitch, so there may not be consistent updates for a while…I will do my best to get the updates up when I can, so please be patient and kind. Trolls are only welcome if I can turn them into virtual smores to be shared by all who want some. Thanks again and have a nice day! -Scarlet**


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